Comment by seanp2k2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanp2k2 | Hacker News Reader

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This; it’s been one of the biggest disappointments in my adult life to realize how many legal adults are so incredibly immature, with such inflated yet fragile egos, that merely apologizing to even someone in their own family is totally out of the question. Another is realizing how many people are so willfully ignorant yet dogmatic. I had some suspicions growing up, and even into my twenties I was still quite naive. Being surrounded by nerdy friends who were also generally professionals in a technical field definitely insulated me from the general public enough that it took another decade for it to really sink in. These days it just all feels a bit lonely (especially with COVID), but the spark of meeting kindred spirits still makes it worth it to attempt to have a social life. True friends are rare.

> how many legal adults are so incredibly immature

Yeah, some of us are like that. I think I've finally matured at about 30-34, now I'm 38 but still learning.

I think that you use "maturity" to mean "being perfect person" or term of approval rather then anything having to do with actual maturity.

It's a problematic word. Barring death or a rare physical condition, all human children biologically reach maturity. The colloquialism of 'mature' (or as the opposite of 'immature') varies notoriously person to person, to the point one could argue that it's immature to use it sincerely in debate.

I agree on it being a problematic word

As far as I am concerned, if one actually cares about the debate they should just replace "mature" for what they think it means or implies for the behaviour of the individual

Replacing the symbol for a definition is quite handy. People get all defensive over being called privileged, but change "privileged" for "having good circumstances" ( or similar ) and they don't feel called out for it despite having the same meaning

IMO it's something of a shame how much the human cognition is crap at that kind of stuff

From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/privileged :

    1 : having or enjoying one or more privileges, privileged classes
    2 : not subject to the usual rules or penalties because of some special circumstance

"having good circumstances" does not have the same meaning. For example you can have good circumstances by luck, or by good timing, without having any privileges.

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